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Archive for March, 2011

The early literacy skill of print awareness means learning about books and print. You and your baby can look at a book together. Baby can look at the pictures while you read or talk about the pictures. Baby will probably turn the pages for you at some point, sometimes just for the fun of seeing how the pages work. Baby will play with the pages back and forth, and sometimes hold the book upside down or backwards. You can gently show baby how the book should be right side up. These experiences of learning how to handle books will help your child develop print awareness.

Talking about the pictures in storybooks with your child, naming things, and telling them something about what is in the pictures will build their vocabulary and help them later as they try to understand what they read. For example, when you read the book Millie’s Marvelous Hat by Satoshi Kitamura, you can point out and name some of the different hats in the park, such as Accordion, Chameleon, Metronome, Trophy, Submarine, etc. Researchers have found that children with a large vocabulary—who have heard a lot of different words—find it easier to read when the time comes.